One Too Many 5k Fundraiser to Support Cortland County Child Advocacy Center, September 19th

Mike Eves: Good morning, it’s Mike Eves right here on X101 Always Classic. Good morning, another edition of Meet Cortland County. With me in the studio, the Executive Director of the Cortland County Child Advocacy Center, Kris Natale, and joining us as well, the Friends of the Cortland County Child Advocacy Center Board President, Brandon Dorsett. Kris, Brandon, good morning. Want to welcome you guys into the studio here.

Kris Natale: Hey Mike, thanks for having us.

Mike Eves: Yes, of course. And one of the big things, of course, the 1 Too Many New York 5K case coming up. Don’t worry, we’re going to talk about that, but first, Kris, let’s kind of discuss about what exactly is the Child Advocacy Center?

Kris Natale: So Child Advocacy Centers are organizations designed to provide a coordinated, multidisciplinary approach to investigations when children have been victims of sexual or physical abuse. Child Advocacy Centers provide a safe, child-friendly environment to conduct forensic interviews, provide specialized medical examinations, mental health treatment, and victim advocacy support to child victims and their non-offending family members. The center provides a full range of specialized services, such as victim advocacy, medical evaluation, counseling, education, housing, court appearances, out-of-pocket costs for medical and counseling appointments, transportation, etc. An advocate will continue to work with the family until they no longer want or need the services. The centers provide the most efficient, effective, and streamlined process that reduces trauma to families by not having children recount their abuse repeatedly and reduces the number of medical examinations children receive. The staff works tirelessly to build a case strong enough to spare a child from having to testify in the presence of their offender and to hold offenders accountable for the crimes committed against children.

Mike Eves: Right. Yeah, kind of… my next question would be, yeah, a little bit more about you guys, but yeah, how does the whole system kind of work and stuff too? And we can kind of talk about your funding too, right Kris?

Kris Natale: Yes. So the Cortland County Child Advocacy Center is a community organization dedicated to the prevention, education, and investigation of child abuse. We have a multidisciplinary team that’s made up of all of law enforcement, the district attorney, the county attorney, mental health agencies, the Department of Social Services, and probation. All of these team members are experts and are always ready to help child victims and their families navigate a complex system and address their unique needs. Helping these children and their families requires an approach that addresses physical, emotional, and legal dimensions of abuse. It requires a coordinated response from experienced professionals to reduce stress through the investigation and intervention process.

Mike Eves: And obviously your office and facility, you know, it’s set up for these multidisciplinary teams to kind of come in and help the children and their family. And then so let’s also kind of get into your funding. How do you guys kind of operate? Obviously, we want lots of money, to be raised. But let’s talk a little bit about the funding for the Child Advocacy Center.

Kris Natale: So we primarily receive funding from two different agencies. The New York State Office of Children and Family Services and the New York State Office of Victim Services. The funding from OCFS is a grant that is primarily for Child Advocacy Centers. That specific grant was increased effective October of 2025. In October of 2025, we also were notified of an increase from the Office of Victim Services. With the Office of Victim Services, that funding comes from the federal level and we just received notification that we received a cut in funding. For the awards, it’s a two-year award that starts October 1st, 2026. 36 of 48 Child Advocacy Centers applied for the funding. Out of those 36, two received first-time funding, seven received increases, 21 received decreases, six were completely defunded. We’re experiencing across New York State a total loss of $6.9 million for Child Advocacy Centers. The New York State Children’s Alliance, who provides support and services to all Child Advocacy Centers in New York State, is working with the government to see if they can bring more funding through New York State into the Office of Children and Family Services fund to help increase funds to Child Advocacy Centers. In the meantime, Cortland County Child Advocacy Center did receive a cut which could negatively impact our programs. It’s our currently our budget is in review with the county. So we don’t really have any updates at this point.

Mike Eves: You know, the number of kids you guys have seen, we were talking about this. You said in the past 10 years, 60%? A few years ago you guys were seeing a little over 100, and now it’s… you know, wow.

Kris Natale: Right, so we provided services to 249 child victims of abuse and their non-offending family members in 2025.

Mike Eves: Wow, so these grants obviously are extremely, extremely important for your guys’ everyday operation.

Kris Natale: Yes. Yes. In addition to that, there’s Erin’s Law that was passed in New York State in 2019 that requires all public schools to provide child abuse and exploitation prevention training to students grades K through 8th. We have a community outreach educator who provides education in the schools, all public schools here in Cortland.

Mike Eves: Yeah, what a big piece of the prevention, right? That’s half the battle, right? Is let’s do the prevention before we have to do the aftermath of something tragic happening, right Kris?

Kris Natale: Yes, exactly.

Mike Eves: And so a little bit about that, obviously the grants cover a lot of what you do, but here we’ll little transition a little bit, Brandon. The Board President of the Friends of the Child Advocacy Center. What are some of the items that say a grant wouldn’t cover? Say you guys are helping out a family and a child, where obviously there’s some comfort items in there and some other things too, right?

Brandon Dorsett: Yeah, sure. So a lot of these families… their main source of income has been stripped away one way or another, for good or for worse. So we raise this money to help support things that the children need on their daily necessities like, you know, maybe like it’s clothing, or even their bedding for their rooms, or whatever they may need. And even up to school supplies. And sometimes it’s… we may supply cameras for the home so they feel a little more safe inside their homes. Or we can give them their toys or…

Mike Eves: Yeah, no, that… that’s pretty amazing just to give them that one piece of comfort, you know. That’s awesome. And obviously, you work with Kris and the Advocacy Center almost hand in hand, right Kris? You guys kind of know exactly what the children need and it’s great you can say, “Alright hey, we need some help with this,” and you guys have such a great board with volunteers. Obviously, you’ve got fundraisers throughout the year. People can always donate too, right? stopchildabuseincortland.org is the website, we want to… that’s one really easy to remember. Of course, we’re here to talk about the 5K and stuff too, and what a great fundraiser. It is, right, without a doubt, your guys’ largest fundraiser. What’s your goal… money-wise to raise this year to help the Advocacy Center?

Brandon Dorsett: Yeah, so we try and raise $25,000 a year. Yeah, so that’s a big impact for the center.

Mike Eves: Yeah, no it is. Of course, the 5K coming up, it’s called the 1 Too Many New York 5K, it’s coming up September 19th. It’s got a new location, a little bit of a change this year, but Brandon, you want to kind of give us the new location and of course, you can still sign up and register.

Brandon Dorsett: Yeah, sure. Yeah, you can sign up, still register up to the day. Registration for, we have a bunch of prizes that we’re going to do this year, we got 12 prizes. But if you want to register for those prizes, just make sure you sign up that morning. You’re gonna have to get there a little early, sign up. It’s at the Homer Community Building. We’re gonna run the same route that we ran last year, just a little bit different to coordinate from where we were or where we are now.

Mike Eves: Yep, 9 to 10, yep.

Brandon Dorsett: Yep.

Mike Eves: And anybody can run or walk. It’s not just the folks who like to run a 5K. I could even get out there. We were talking with the girls, you know, push a stroller, get your dog out there. I love that you guys have kind of had the 5K for the dogs, and you guys give out prizes. And speaking of that too, you’ve got some great prizes in the categories and things too. I think that’s cool, of course, registrants… running the 5K, I know you guys always have a great swag bag. Box lunch, right? There’s a couple of places we want to thank for getting us…

Brandon Dorsett: Yeah definitely, we got the M&D Deli is doing a box lunch for us. Sinfully Sweet is going to be doing some cookies at the end to give you a little sweet treat.

Mike Eves: Awesome, I asked… I was asking Kris, I hope you have those cookies. We love Stacy and Sinfully Sweet across the street. And plus running, right, you gotta be refreshed, obviously there’s water there, but what else? We’ve got one of our favorite breweries…

Brandon Dorsett: Yeah we got Homer Hops there. So you can congratulate yourself from finishing the race with a delicious cold beer.

Mike Eves: Yep, nice cold… nice cold pilsner or something too, right? But you know, no it’s great. The money raised, really, it’s going towards the Advocacy Center, it’s going for what the Child Advocacy Center needs, and obviously monetary donations are good too, but once in a while you guys also sometimes will solicit some other items as well. Again, yeah, we want you to register, stopchildabuseincortland.org is the website, you can register today, you can register right at the pre-registration table… 9 to 10, kind of thinking of what else we have. Oh, you guys have… I know you guys usually do a really big drawing too, just for participating in the 5K. You guys have always had a great prize. What do we have this year?

Brandon Dorsett: Yeah, we have a prize to Kalahari.

Mike Eves: Awesome, that’s a pretty cool place. We’ve been there and I know you’ve got some prizes, right, how about some zoos and museums? I mean it really is a great collection of like Northeast… like fun things to do with your family. Absolutely. One year we actually won the Crayola Factory, so that’s pretty cool that you guys get some regional ones too, and I know you guys always get support locally from so many local businesses. We were talking before, right, Homer Hops was one of them and… Quill and Farmhouse across the street here or Homer Men and Boys, I’m getting my Homer places confused. See, but they’re all local and stuff too. And it really is amazing what the Child Advocacy Center does, Kris, and it’s awesome to see you got the support of the Friends of the Cortland County Child Advocacy Center. Anything else before we… we’re just almost out of time, I don’t think we forgot to mention anything. Again if you want to do one more plug for when the 5K is, Brandon.

Brandon Dorsett: Yeah sure, it’s September 19th.

Mike Eves: Okay.

Brandon Dorsett: At the Homer Community Building it’s going to be… make sure you pre-register so you can win some of those prizes and then the race starts right at 10. Run, walk, roll, whatever you kind of want to choose to do. It’s a lot of fun and we’ll see you there at the finish line, right?

Mike Eves: Kris, anything else you want to say before we wrap up here this morning?

Kris Natale: Thanks Mike, we appreciate you having us.

Mike Eves: Yeah, no always, always happy to have you guys in here and want to thank you guys for what you’re doing in the community and things too. Brandon, anything else you want to say, one last thing? We’ll see you on race day, right? You’ll be participating, right? Yeah, tie your shoes and come on out.

Brandon Dorsett: Yep, we’ll see you there. Tie your shoes and come on out.

Mike Eves: Yep, that’s right. For X101 Always Classic, I’m Mike Eves.